death of bin laden, do you think that the conflict in afghanistan will be seen as anything but a rather miserable failure in the end? >> i think it will be. actually, it will be interestingly and maybe more positively paired with the war in iraq, being a discretionary war the u.s. undertook on the basis of incorrect information. i think the war in afghanistan it was undertaken for almost noncontroversial reasons within the united states. direct retribution for the attacks of 9/11 and where taliban al qaeda was at the time. i think the debate will be did the u.s. get distracted by afghanistan by the iraq venture and another way to wind it up than the one we have? it's interesting in the presidential campaign concluded there's so little debate about this with so little appetite on either side of the political divide to stay there longer, increase the bet and i think seen as a sadly concluded affair and we got in to it for understandable reasons. >> christin, something else on the fiscal cliff. a drop in confidence and zero u.s. economic growth with no agreement on this fiscal cliff and indeed a rip